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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140455">Sons of Earth and Starry Sky</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/demeritus/pseuds/demeritus'>demeritus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Jokes We Took Just Far Enough [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Celtic Mythology &amp; Folklore, Fluff and Angst, Grail Quest, Holy Grail, M/M, POV First Person, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Temporary Character Death, Welsh Folklore, Wild Hunt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:02:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,087</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/demeritus/pseuds/demeritus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I basked in you;<br/>I loved you, helplessly, with a boundless tongue-tied love,<br/>And death doesn’t prevent me from loving you.<br/>Besides,<br/>in my opinion you aren’t dead.<br/>(I know dead people, and you are not dead.)"</p><p>- Franz Wright</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Galahad/Percival (Arthurian)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Jokes We Took Just Far Enough [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967320</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sons of Earth and Starry Sky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ground, the sky, the trees, it was all a blur caught up in mania as I sprinted from the castle. My ears still rung from the baying of the hounds that seemed to surround us and that unthinkable image burned in my mind as a figure whose signs I recognized too late approached us, knelt with me as I desperately tried to bind the wound with my torn tunic, and I believe that it was his face you saw in your last moments</p><p>I knew where you had been taken, and exactly how to get there, so I ran, I ran and ran and tripped on rocks and roots and dead branches until my head was spinning and I was near blind from the snow that kept falling, and only when I was seized with confusion and exhaustion both did I collapse, awake and breathing and taking bits of ice into my raw hands to eat. I think enough of my senses returned so I could tell how lost I was, lost in the unknown woods and lost in my own misery and desperation. All I had to do then was wait and keep myself awake by trying to make sense of everything through the ringing in my ears and the image of your face as it lost all colour and those Gentle hands took you into another world. This was not what should have happened, and I thought it should have been me and damn the Grail if it meant a flame snuffed out and a life without your light and I had no time to think of what you <i>might<i> have wanted before I thought of Life, Life above all and humanity before divinity.</i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i>I never thought you would deny me as you did, or did you follow me to the surface all along,  only for my doubt, my uncertainty, to doom us for an eternity?</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>I reeled in the winter woods until my thoughts had stopped and my eyes went blank and the deer that was neither creature nor spirit crossed my path and I stumbled to my feet to follow her.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>I don’t know how I imagined it as a child, but the fields and forests I passed in that realm were rough to my senses, like rubbing tree bark along delicate skin, while eating tree bark, as the smell of burning, dying, growing wood and wet moss and trampled leaves surrounded me, and I could feel the eyes of a thousand patient hunters fixed on my every move. I had no mind to worry about them or the beasts they would have set on me until those beasts bit at my back and trampled me to the ground with only a second to stand and run, for your life rather than my own, and I think if my intentions had not been so clear to me, that realm, and its Gentle ruler, I would have become another soul stolen by the relentless Wild Hunt.</i>
  </i>
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    <i>I think it was you I prayed to in what I thought were my last moments, a prayer that would have placed me at your side in the very realm that had stolen both of us.</i>
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    <i>“You came here of your own volition.” The figure who stood before me as the party surrounded us, their voice was no softer than the edges of their domain. I nodded and looked up with what I can only think were wide, red-rimmed eyes, but even as I saw their face.I could not have told you what they looked like.</i>
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    <i>“Gwyn ap Nudd.” It wasn’t the language they spoke, but I think I shifted into the voice that was always at my core, the voice I had to soften for Camelot’s posh halls, that I had used with my mam and my home, and when confidence struck me, with you, the voice that I always hoped cut directly to the roots of whoever heard it so we could understand each other like two souls joined in unity. I always tried to believe I could learn the language of wind rushing through leaves, and I think that would have been closer to the language of the Fair Folk.</i>
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    <i>“You know who I am.” I used as few words as I could; there could be no more traps. “You know why I’m here.”</i>
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    <i>The Gentle leader looked to one of the figures stood on horseback amongst the gathered Hunt, whose faces were lost to the obscurity of the Hunt as a singular entity whose individual components meant nothing but for their skill and strength.</i>
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    <i>I nearly failed to recognize you for the darkness of the woods that seeped into the Hunt itself so that their essences were nearly indistinguishable from each other. You were another hunter in the crowd surrounding me, another of the Hunt who had chased me to the foot of your lead- to the foot of the chief of Annwn. This was not your soul I saw, but I think it was your soul trapped in a shell that would suit the Hunt’s purpose. I recognized your soul but I couldn’t tell...were you at rest, or were you in agony? Would you have known if you had taken me victim in the ceaseless game of this other world? </i>
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    <i>I stood and approached you, and I felt too small gazing up what felt like feet above me to meet your eyes. I never thought I would ever see <i>your<i> eyes as empty as they were in that place; not even in your death did your spark leave those cloudy gates, but there, atop a fairy horse, those dead eyes and blank expression spoke of the singular interest forced upon you as a <i>blessing<i>.</i></i></i></i></i>
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            <i>“We only keep with honourable heroes.” The chief’s head bore antlers, and I could never tell if they sprouted from them, or if they wore them as a crown, as a trophy. “When your land has its greatest need, they will return to its service.”</i>
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            <i>“It’s too soon for him.” I turned away from you then to address the chief; I think I couldn’t take seeing you in such a way, and I felt your presence then without a look.</i>
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            <i>The chief looked to you again and your steed strode forward, the others separating from the three of us like they had dissipated into the air.</i>
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            <i>“You will leave this place as you entered it, and he will follow you. He will track you as the Hunter he is and if you can evade him, we will release him from service for a time.”</i>
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            <i>I never saw you or the chief leave and I didn’t think I had walked away, but I found myself alone and the air like rough bark scratched against me and my instincts took over, pushed only to protect myself like I had forgotten my goal, forgotten I was running from you to save you. In the flashes I remember from that fervor, I wondered if it was really you who was chasing me, if this was a trick to lead me into the second of an eternity of pursuits and for the mindless prey that I think Annwn made of me for that hunt alone, my eyes darted everywhere and I could have been running on all fours. I had no idea where I was going or when this would be over, no reason to believe there would be an end to this; then the rough air changed to silk and the world before me was day, and all I had to do was walk forward and away from your arrow. All I wanted was to be sure I was safe, my soul needed the certainty that <i>you<i> would be safe, and that’s what led me to look back at the precipice between worlds long enough for your arrow to pierce my chest. </i></i></i>
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                <i>I woke up later, in the care of Bors, who said he had pieced together what happened from my ramblings. If I had dreams, I don’t remember them, and if I was dead, I went nowhere before Bors was able to seal my wound with whatever magic could heal immortal damage, though he never said what he did with the arrow. </i>
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                <i>What happened after that doesn’t much matter. It wasn’t long before the borrowed life Bors had gifted me ended, and I think I was blessed enough to go in the night.</i>
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                <i>*</i>
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                <i>Percival became quiet then, and Galahad could only tell the story was over after the silence carried on and Percival raised his head anxious for a reaction. </i>
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                <i>Galahad took a deep breath.</i>
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                <i>“That’s the only <i>real<i> thing I remember,” Galahad said. “Everything else was trivial, a monolith of ethereal haze and heavenly cotton. No pain felt, no time passed, until you found me dropped on the side of the road. For all I could tell, you were the Hunt come for me at last.”</i></i></i>
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                    <i>“Again, I’m <i>really<i> sorry I almost hit you with my car,” Percival said, weakly since he knew this was the tenth time he had apologized and he thought Galahad was likely growing tired of it. Galahad, for his part, shrugged it off and gave Percival a brief smile.</i></i></i>
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                        <i>“As much as I could think when I was there,” Galahad said. “I was touched when I saw you. I almost remember your sorrow when you looked at me, and at my core I wanted to soothe you, but I knew there was nothing I could do. You were so close, Percy. Don’t think it was your fault. It was the fate of those fallen in battle to join them; but I think you were the only one I ever saw who challenged a god in their own domain without any hesitation.”</i>
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                        <i>“You didn’t kill me.” The words spilled from Percival like blood from a sudden wound and like most words, he regretted them and tried to stitch the wound back together. “That wasn’t <i>you,<i> and if it was your fate to join <i>them,<i> it must have been mine to perish from...hubris.”</i></i></i></i></i>
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                                <i>Galahad’s expression hardened and something almost like anger filled his words, but when he took Percival’s hand in his, it was as gentle as calm waters. </i>
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                                <i>“I <i>know<i> you and it was never so simple with you,” Galahad said. “I doubt you were thinking about <i>fate<i> or <i>destiny<i> or what it would take to <i>outsmart a god.<i> It makes sense that you’re a poet now. You always sang the songs of the earth, even if it was in a language no one else knew.”</i></i></i></i></i></i></i></i></i>
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                                                <i>Percival only paused, nodded, and squeezed Galahad’s hand.</i>
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                                                <i>“King Arthur was there, wasn’t he?” Percival asked quietly.</i>
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                                                <i>“Yes,” Galahad answered. “We never spoke though. No one did.”</i>
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                                                <i>A long silence followed. This time Galahad broke it.</i>
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                                                <i>“Do you know what happened with the Grail?’</i>
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                                                <i>“No,” Percival shook his head, looking into his lap. “Bors never spoke of it, and I didn’t make it back to Camelot with him.”</i>
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                                                <i>Galahad nodded, sitting in silence again until Percival pulled his hand away and crossed the room to pull blankets from a trunk. He started arranging them on the floor, making one into a pillow.</i>
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                                                <i>“No,” Galahad said. Percival jumped in surprise. “Please. You shouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. It’s your bed.”</i>
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                                                <i>“I don’t want <i>you<i> sleeping on the floor either,” Percival said with the anxiety of something desired but unspoken. He carefully placed the extra blankets on the bed. “Would you mind if I -”</i></i></i>
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                                                    <i>“Percival you quite literally went to hell and back for me,” Galahad barely held back a laugh.  “And I’ve been <i>on a horse<i> for fifteen-hundred years! And even before that I don’t think I ever really cuddled anyone.”</i></i></i>
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                                                        <i>Percival blinked and smiled when Galahad immediately helped him arrange the bed for both of them, and when they crawled under the covers, they took their time to turn off the lights. After several attempts to negotiate what was most comfortable for both of them, their bodies melded together like rain drops.</i>
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                                                        <i>When he was sure Galahad was asleep, Percival whispered into his ear.</i>
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                                                        <i>“I was in love with you…”</i>
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                                                        <i>To Percival’s surprise, Galahad moved closer to him, closing the gap between them, before turning to face Percival. Even through the dark, they found each others’ eyes, beacons in the unknown seas of their new lives. </i>
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                                                        <i>“I love you too,” Galahad leaned in to whisper into Percival’s ear, then rested his cheek on Percival’s shoulder.</i>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Part of a challenge between friends with the prompt to include both "Major Character Death" and "there was only one bed." This is work number two from me, but the only successful one.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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